Ad-hoc link-local multicast delivery of HTTP responses

ABSTRACT

A Network Access Point (NAP) in an ICN may have multiple clients requesting the same resource. Instead of sending multiple link-local unicast transmissions, the multiple clients may subscribe to a response bucket based on their unicast address and the NAP may send a multicast response to the group based on previously issued HTTP requests. The response bucket may contain multiple clients attached to the NAP. A multicast address of the response bucket may be used by the NAP to send the multicast response. A class D octet in the multicast group address may be derived from a class C octet of the individual client IP addresses.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is the U.S. National Stage, under 35 U.S.C. § 371, ofInternational Application No. PCT/US2018/038016 filed Jun. 18, 2018,which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/527,104filed on Jun. 30, 2017, the contents of which are hereby incorporated byreference herein.

BACKGROUND

In wireless communication there are instances where it may be useful tohave many devices retrieve the same content and control the reception ofthe content individually. Wireless and wired protocols may be used toenable the receipt of this content such that the least burden is placedon the infrastructure and the process is efficient for the end userdevice.

SUMMARY

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for .delivering a single HypertextTransfer Protocol (HTTP) response to multiple clients using extendedInternet Protocol (IP) multicast are disclosed. A first network accesspoint (NAP) may assign an IP address to a client that has attached tothe NAP. The first NAP may receive an Internet Group Management Protocol(IGMP) message from the client to join a multicast address associatedwith a response bucket that contains multiple clients attached to thefirst NAP. A class D octet in the multicast address may be a class Coctet of the client's IP address. The first NAP may receive a HypertextTransfer Protocol (HTTP) request from the client. The first NAP maypublish the HTTP request to a second NAP. The published HTTP request mayinclude a content identifier (CID). The first NAP may receive an HTTPresponse from the second NAP. The HTTP response may include a reverseCID (rCID). The first NAP may determine that the client and one or moreof the multiple clients are awaiting the HTTP response. The first NAPmay send a multicast response to a bucket of clients (identified by anIP multicast address) containing the HTTP response to the multicastaddress. The multicast response may include a group ID field in an IPheader indicating that the client is to extract the response.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more detailed understanding may be had from the following description,given by way of example in conjunction with the accompanying drawings,wherein like reference numerals in the figures indicate like elements,and wherein:

FIG. 1A is a system diagram illustrating an example communicationssystem in which one or more disclosed embodiments may be implemented;

FIG. 1B is a system diagram illustrating an example wirelesstransmit/receive unit (WTRU) that may be used within the communicationssystem illustrated in FIG. 1A according to an embodiment;

FIG. 1C is a system diagram illustrating an example radio access network(RAN) and an example core network (CN) that may be used within thecommunications system illustrated in FIG. 1A according to an embodiment;

FIG. 1D is a system diagram illustrating a further example RAN and afurther example CN that may be used within the communications systemillustrated in FIG. 1A according to an embodiment;

FIG. 1E is component diagram of a computing device;

FIG. 1F is a component diagram of a server;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a Hypertext Transfer Protocol/InternetProtocol-over information-centric network (HTTP/IP-over-ICN) networkwith a Network Attachment Point (NAP)-based protocol mapping;

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a method of efficient delivery oflink-local multicast HTTP responses;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a determination of an IP multicastaddress is shown;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of a NAP providing multicastdelivery of HTTP responses; and

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an IP header for IP multicast with oneor more IP header extensions.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating an example communications system 100in which one or more disclosed embodiments may be implemented. Thecommunications system 100 may be a multiple access system that providescontent, such as voice, data, video, messaging, broadcast, etc., tomultiple wireless users. The communications system 100 may enablemultiple wireless users to access such content through the sharing ofsystem resources, including wireless bandwidth. For example, thecommunications systems 100 may employ one or more channel accessmethods, such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time divisionmultiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA),orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA), zero-tailunique-word DFT-Spread OFDM (ZT UW DTS-s OFDM), unique word OFDM(UW-OFDM), resource block-filtered OFDM, filter bank multicarrier(FBMC), and the like.

As shown in FIG. 1A, the communications system 100 may include wirelesstransmit/receive units (WTRUs) 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d, a RAN104/113, a CN 106/115, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 108,the Internet 110, and other networks 112, though it will be appreciatedthat the disclosed embodiments contemplate any number of WTRUs, basestations, networks, and/or network elements. Each of the WTRUs 102 a,102 b, 102 c, 102 d may be any type of device configured to operateand/or communicate in a wireless environment. By way of example, theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d, any of which may be referred to as a“station” and/or a “STA”, may be configured to transmit and/or receivewireless signals and may include a user equipment (UE), a mobilestation, a fixed or mobile subscriber unit, a subscription-based unit, apager, a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), asmartphone, a laptop, a netbook, a personal computer, a wireless sensor,a hotspot or Mi-Fi device, an Internet of Things (IoT) device, a watchor other wearable, a head-mounted display (HMD), a vehicle, a drone, amedical device and applications (e.g., remote surgery), an industrialdevice and applications (e.g., a robot and/or other wireless devicesoperating in an industrial and/or an automated processing chaincontexts), a consumer electronics device, a device operating oncommercial and/or industrial wireless networks, and the like. Any of theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c and 102 d may be interchangeably referred toas a UE.

The communications systems 100 may also include a base station 114 aand/or a base station 114 b. Each of the base stations 114 a, 114 b maybe any type of device configured to wirelessly interface with at leastone of the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d to facilitate access to oneor more communication networks, such as the CN 106/115, the Internet110, and/or the other networks 112. By way of example, the base stations114 a, 114 b may be a base transceiver station (BTS), a Node-B, an eNodeB, a Home Node B, a Home eNode B, a gNB, a NR NodeB, a site controller,an access point (AP), a wireless router, and the like. While the basestations 114 a, 114 b are each depicted as a single element, it will beappreciated that the base stations 114 a, 114 b may include any numberof interconnected base stations and/or network elements.

The base station 114 a may be part of the RAN 104/113, which may alsoinclude other base stations and/or network elements (not shown), such asa base station controller (BSC), a radio network controller (RNC), relaynodes, etc. The base station 114 a and/or the base station 114 b may beconfigured to transmit and/or receive wireless signals on one or morecarrier frequencies, which may be referred to as a cell (not shown).These frequencies may be in licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, or acombination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. A cell may providecoverage for a wireless service to a specific geographical area that maybe relatively fixed or that may change over time. The cell may furtherbe divided into cell sectors. For example, the cell associated with thebase station 114 a may be divided into three sectors. Thus, in oneembodiment, the base station 114 a may include three transceivers, i.e.,one for each sector of the cell. In an embodiment, the base station 114a may employ multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) technology and mayutilize multiple transceivers for each sector of the cell. For example,beamforming may be used to transmit and/or receive signals in desiredspatial directions.

The base stations 114 a, 114 b may communicate with one or more of theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d over an air interface 116, which may beany suitable wireless communication link (e.g., radio frequency (RF),microwave, centimeter wave, micrometer wave, infrared (IR), ultraviolet(UV), visible light, etc.). The air interface 116 may be establishedusing any suitable radio access technology (RAT).

More specifically, as noted above, the communications system 100 may bea multiple access system and may employ one or more channel accessschemes, such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA, and the like. Forexample, the base station 114 a in the RAN 104/113 and the WTRUs 102 a,102 b, 102 c may implement a radio technology such as Universal MobileTelecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), whichmay establish the air interface 115/116/117 using wideband CDMA (WCDMA).WCDMA may include communication protocols such as High-Speed PacketAccess (HSPA) and/or Evolved HSPA (HSPA+). HSPA may include High-SpeedDownlink (DL) Packet Access (HSDPA) and/or High-Speed UL Packet Access(HSUPA).

In an embodiment, the base station 114 a and the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as Evolved UMTS TerrestrialRadio Access (E-UTRA), which may establish the air interface 116 usingLong Term Evolution (LTE) and/or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) and/orLTE-Advanced Pro (LTE-A Pro).

In an embodiment, the base station 114 a and the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102c may implement a radio technology such as NR Radio Access, which mayestablish the air interface 116 using New Radio (NR).

In an embodiment, the base station 114 a and the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102c may implement multiple radio access technologies. For example, thebase station 114 a and the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may implement LTEradio access and NR radio access together, for instance using dualconnectivity (DC) principles. Thus, the air interface utilized by WTRUs102 a, 102 b, 102 c may be characterized by multiple types of radioaccess technologies and/or transmissions sent to/from multiple types ofbase stations (e.g., a eNB and a gNB).

In other embodiments, the base station 114 a and the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b,102 c may implement radio technologies such as IEEE 802.11 (i.e.,Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), IEEE 802.16 (i.e., Worldwide Interoperabilityfor Microwave Access (WiMAX)), CDMA2000, CDMA2000 1×, CDMA2000 EV-DO,Interim Standard 2000 (IS-2000), Interim Standard 95 (IS-95), InterimStandard 856 (IS-856), Global System for Mobile communications (GSM),Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), GSM EDGE (GERAN), and thelike.

The base station 114 b in FIG. 1A may be a wireless router, Home Node B,Home eNode B, or access point, for example, and may utilize any suitableRAT for facilitating wireless connectivity in a localized area, such asa place of business, a home, a vehicle, a campus, an industrialfacility, an air corridor (e.g., for use by drones), a roadway, and thelike. In one embodiment, the base station 114 b and the WTRUs 102 c, 102d may implement a radio technology such as IEEE 802.11 to establish awireless local area network (WLAN). In an embodiment, the base station114 b and the WTRUs 102 c, 102 d may implement a radio technology suchas IEEE 802.15 to establish a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Inyet another embodiment, the base station 114 b and the WTRUs 102 c, 102d may utilize a cellular-based RAT (e.g., WCDMA, CDMA2000, GSM, LTE,LTE-A, LTE-A Pro, NR etc.) to establish a picocell or femtocell. Asshown in FIG. 1A, the base station 114 b may have a direct connection tothe Internet 110. Thus, the base station 114 b may not be required toaccess the Internet 110 via the CN 106/115.

The RAN 104/113 may be in communication with the CN 106/115, which maybe any type of network configured to provide voice, data, applications,and/or voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services to one or more ofthe WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d. The data may have varying qualityof service (QoS) requirements, such as differing throughputrequirements, latency requirements, error tolerance requirements,reliability requirements, data throughput requirements, mobilityrequirements, and the like. The CN 106/115 may provide call control,billing services, mobile location-based services, pre-paid calling,Internet connectivity, video distribution, etc., and/or performhigh-level security functions, such as user authentication. Although notshown in FIG. 1A, it will be appreciated that the RAN 104/113 and/or theCN 106/115 may be in direct or indirect communication with other RANsthat employ the same RAT as the RAN 104/113 or a different RAT. Forexample, in addition to being connected to the RAN 104/113, which may beutilizing a NR radio technology, the CN 106/115 may also be incommunication with another RAN (not shown) employing a GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, WiMAX, E-UTRA, or WiFi radio technology.

The CN 106/115 may also serve as a gateway for the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b,102 c, 102 d to access the PSTN 108, the Internet 110, and/or the othernetworks 112. The PSTN 108 may include circuit-switched telephonenetworks that provide plain old telephone service (POTS). The Internet110 may include a global system of interconnected computer networks anddevices that use common communication protocols, such as thetransmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP) and/orthe internet protocol (IP) in the TCP/IP internet protocol suite. Thenetworks 112 may include wired and/or wireless communications networksowned and/or operated by other service providers. For example, thenetworks 112 may include another CN connected to one or more RANs, whichmay employ the same RAT as the RAN 104/113 or a different RAT.

Some or all of the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d in thecommunications system 100 may include multi-mode capabilities (e.g., theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, 102 d may include multiple transceivers forcommunicating with different wireless networks over different wirelesslinks). For example, the WTRU 102 c shown in FIG. 1A may be configuredto communicate with the base station 114 a, which may employ acellular-based radio technology, and with the base station 114 b, whichmay employ an IEEE 802 radio technology.

FIG. 1B is a system diagram illustrating an example WTRU 102. As shownin FIG. 1B, the WTRU 102 may include a processor 118, a transceiver 120,a transmit/receive element 122, a speaker/microphone 124, a keypad 126,a display/touchpad 128, non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132,a power source 134, a global positioning system (GPS) chipset 136,and/or other peripherals 138, among others. It will be appreciated thatthe WTRU 102 may include any sub-combination of the foregoing elementswhile remaining consistent with an embodiment.

The processor 118 may be a general purpose processor, a special purposeprocessor, a conventional processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), aplurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in associationwith a DSP core, a controller, a microcontroller, Application SpecificIntegrated Circuits (ASICs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)circuits, any other type of integrated circuit (IC), a state machine,and the like. The processor 118 may perform signal coding, dataprocessing, power control, input/output processing, and/or any otherfunctionality that enables the WTRU 102 to operate in a wirelessenvironment. The processor 118 may be coupled to the transceiver 120,which may be coupled to the transmit/receive element 122. While FIG. 1Bdepicts the processor 118 and the transceiver 120 as separatecomponents, it will be appreciated that the processor 118 and thetransceiver 120 may be integrated together in an electronic package orchip.

The transmit/receive element 122 may be configured to transmit signalsto, or receive signals from, a base station (e.g., the base station 114a) over the air interface 116. For example, in one embodiment, thetransmit/receive element 122 may be an antenna configured to transmitand/or receive RF signals. In an embodiment, the transmit/receiveelement 122 may be an emitter/detector configured to transmit and/orreceive IR, UV, or visible light signals, for example. In yet anotherembodiment, the transmit/receive element 122 may be configured totransmit and/or receive both RF and light signals. It will beappreciated that the transmit/receive element 122 may be configured totransmit and/or receive any combination of wireless signals.

Although the transmit/receive element 122 is depicted in FIG. 1B as asingle element, the WTRU 102 may include any number of transmit/receiveelements 122. More specifically, the WTRU 102 may employ MIMOtechnology. Thus, in one embodiment, the WTRU 102 may include two ormore transmit/receive elements 122 (e.g., multiple antennas) fortransmitting and receiving wireless signals over the air interface 116.

The transceiver 120 may be configured to modulate the signals that areto be transmitted by the transmit/receive element 122 and to demodulatethe signals that are received by the transmit/receive element 122. Asnoted above, the WTRU 102 may have multi-mode capabilities. Thus, thetransceiver 120 may include multiple transceivers for enabling the WTRU102 to communicate via multiple RATs, such as NR and IEEE 802.11, forexample.

The processor 118 of the WTRU 102 may be coupled to, and may receiveuser input data from, the speaker/microphone 124, the keypad 126, and/orthe display/touchpad 128 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) displayunit or organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display unit). The processor118 may also output user data to the speaker/microphone 124, the keypad126, and/or the display/touchpad 128. In addition, the processor 118 mayaccess information from, and store data in, any type of suitable memory,such as the non-removable memory 130 and/or the removable memory 132.The non-removable memory 130 may include random-access memory (RAM),read-only memory (ROM), a hard disk, or any other type of memory storagedevice. The removable memory 132 may include a subscriber identitymodule (SIM) card, a memory stick, a secure digital (SD) memory card,and the like. In other embodiments, the processor 118 may accessinformation from, and store data in, memory that is not physicallylocated on the WTRU 102, such as on a server or a home computer (notshown).

The processor 118 may receive power from the power source 134, and maybe configured to distribute and/or control the power to the othercomponents in the WTRU 102. The power source 134 may be any suitabledevice for powering the WTRU 102. For example, the power source 134 mayinclude one or more dry cell batteries (e.g., nickel-cadmium (NiCd),nickel-zinc (NiZn), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li-ion),etc.), solar cells, fuel cells, and the like.

The processor 118 may also be coupled to the GPS chipset 136, which maybe configured to provide location information (e.g., longitude andlatitude) regarding the current location of the WTRU 102. In additionto, or in lieu of, the information from the GPS chipset 136, the WTRU102 may receive location information over the air interface 116 from abase station (e.g., base stations 114 a, 114 b) and/or determine itslocation based on the timing of the signals being received from two ormore nearby base stations. It will be appreciated that the WTRU 102 mayacquire location information by way of any suitablelocation-determination method while remaining consistent with anembodiment.

The processor 118 may further be coupled to other peripherals 138, whichmay include one or more software and/or hardware modules that provideadditional features, functionality and/or wired or wirelessconnectivity. For example, the peripherals 138 may include anaccelerometer, an e-compass, a satellite transceiver, a digital camera(for photographs and/or video), a universal serial bus (USB) port, avibration device, a television transceiver, a hands free headset, aBluetooth® module, a frequency modulated (FM) radio unit, a digitalmusic player, a media player, a video game player module, an Internetbrowser, a Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality (VR/AR) device, anactivity tracker, and the like. The peripherals 138 may include one ormore sensors, the sensors may be one or more of a gyroscope, anaccelerometer, a hall effect sensor, a magnetometer, an orientationsensor, a proximity sensor, a temperature sensor, a time sensor; ageolocation sensor; an altimeter, a light sensor, a touch sensor, amagnetometer, a barometer, a gesture sensor, a biometric sensor, and/ora humidity sensor.

The WTRU 102 may include a full duplex radio for which transmission andreception of some or all of the signals (e.g., associated withparticular subframes for both the UL (e.g., for transmission) anddownlink (e.g., for reception) may be concurrent and/or simultaneous.The full duplex radio may include an interference management unit 139 toreduce and or substantially eliminate self-interference via eitherhardware (e.g., a choke) or signal processing via a processor (e.g., aseparate processor (not shown) or via processor 118). In an embodiment,the WTRU 102 may include a half-duplex radio for which transmission andreception of some or all of the signals (e.g., associated withparticular subframes for either the UL (e.g., for transmission) or thedownlink (e.g., for reception)).

FIG. 1C is a system diagram illustrating the RAN 104 and the CN 106according to an embodiment. As noted above, the RAN 104 may employ anE-UTRA radio technology to communicate with the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102c over the air interface 116. The RAN 104 may also be in communicationwith the CN 106.

The RAN 104 may include eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c, though it will beappreciated that the RAN 104 may include any number of eNode-Bs whileremaining consistent with an embodiment. The eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160c may each include one or more transceivers for communicating with theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c over the air interface 116. In one embodiment,the eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c may implement MIMO technology. Thus,the eNode-B 160 a, for example, may use multiple antennas to transmitwireless signals to, and/or receive wireless signals from, the WTRU 102a.

Each of the eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c may be associated with aparticular cell (not shown) and may be configured to handle radioresource management decisions, handover decisions, scheduling of usersin the UL and/or DL, and the like. As shown in FIG. 10, the eNode-Bs 160a, 160 b, 160 c may communicate with one another over an X2 interface.

The CN 106 shown in FIG. 10 may include a mobility management entity(MME) 162, a serving gateway (SGW) 164, and a packet data network (PDN)gateway (or PGW) 166. While each of the foregoing elements are depictedas part of the CN 106, it will be appreciated that any of these elementsmay be owned and/or operated by an entity other than the CN operator.

The MME 162 may be connected to each of the eNode-Bs 162 a, 162 b, 162 cin the RAN 104 via an S1 interface and may serve as a control node. Forexample, the MME 162 may be responsible for authenticating users of theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, bearer activation/deactivation, selecting aparticular serving gateway during an initial attach of the WTRUs 102 a,102 b, 102 c, and the like. The MME 162 may provide a control planefunction for switching between the RAN 104 and other RANs (not shown)that employ other radio technologies, such as GSM and/or WCDMA.

The SGW 164 may be connected to each of the eNode Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 cin the RAN 104 via the S1 interface. The SGW 164 may generally route andforward user data packets to/from the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c. The SGW164 may perform other functions, such as anchoring user planes duringinter-eNode B handovers, triggering paging when DL data is available forthe WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, managing and storing contexts of theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, and the like.

The SGW 164 may be connected to the PGW 166, which may provide the WTRUs102 a, 102 b, 102 c with access to packet-switched networks, such as theInternet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102 a, 102b, 102 c and IP-enabled devices.

The CN 106 may facilitate communications with other networks. Forexample, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c withaccess to circuit-switched networks, such as the PSTN 108, to facilitatecommunications between the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c and traditionalland-line communications devices. For example, the CN 106 may include,or may communicate with, an IP gateway (e.g., an IP multimedia subsystem(IMS) server) that serves as an interface between the CN 106 and thePSTN 108. In addition, the CN 106 may provide the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b,102 c with access to the other networks 112, which may include otherwired and/or wireless networks that are owned and/or operated by otherservice providers.

Although the WTRU is described in FIGS. 1A-1D as a wireless terminal, itis contemplated that in certain representative embodiments that such aterminal may use (e.g., temporarily or permanently) wired communicationinterfaces with the communication network.

In representative embodiments, the other network 112 may be a WLAN.

A WLAN in Infrastructure Basic Service Set (BSS) mode may have an AccessPoint (AP) for the BSS and one or more stations (STAs) associated withthe AP. The AP may have an access or an interface to a DistributionSystem (DS) or another type of wired/wireless network that carriestraffic in to and/or out of the BSS. Traffic to STAs that originatesfrom outside the BSS may arrive through the AP and may be delivered tothe STAs. Traffic originating from STAs to destinations outside the BSSmay be sent to the AP to be delivered to respective destinations.Traffic between STAs within the BSS may be sent through the AP, forexample, where the source STA may send traffic to the AP and the AP maydeliver the traffic to the destination STA. The traffic between STAswithin a BSS may be considered and/or referred to as peer-to-peertraffic. The peer-to-peer traffic may be sent between (e.g., directlybetween) the source and destination STAs with a direct link setup (DLS).In certain representative embodiments, the DLS may use an 802.11e DLS oran 802.11z tunneled DLS (TDLS). A WLAN using an Independent BSS (IBSS)mode may not have an AP, and the STAs (e.g., all of the STAs) within orusing the IBSS may communicate directly with each other. The IBSS modeof communication may sometimes be referred to herein as an “ad-hoc” modeof communication.

When using the 802.11ac infrastructure mode of operation or a similarmode of operations, the AP may transmit a beacon on a fixed channel,such as a primary channel. The primary channel may be a fixed width(e.g., 20 MHz wide bandwidth) or a dynamically set width via signaling.The primary channel may be the operating channel of the BSS and may beused by the STAs to establish a connection with the AP. In certainrepresentative embodiments, Carrier Sense Multiple Access with CollisionAvoidance (CSMA/CA) may be implemented, for example in in 802.11systems. For CSMA/CA, the STAs (e.g., every STA), including the AP, maysense the primary channel. If the primary channel is sensed/detectedand/or determined to be busy by a particular STA, the particular STA mayback off. One STA (e.g., only one station) may transmit at any giventime in a given BSS.

High Throughput (HT) STAs may use a 40 MHz wide channel forcommunication, for example, via a combination of the primary 20 MHzchannel with an adjacent or nonadjacent 20 MHz channel to form a 40 MHzwide channel.

Very High Throughput (VHT) STAs may support 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz,and/or 160 MHz wide channels. The 40 MHz, and/or 80 MHz, channels may beformed by combining contiguous 20 MHz channels. A 160 MHz channel may beformed by combining 8 contiguous 20 MHz channels, or by combining twonon-contiguous 80 MHz channels, which may be referred to as an 80+80configuration. For the 80+80 configuration, the data, after channelencoding, may be passed through a segment parser that may divide thedata into two streams. Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) processing,and time domain processing, may be done on each stream separately. Thestreams may be mapped on to the two 80 MHz channels, and the data may betransmitted by a transmitting STA. At the receiver of the receiving STA,the above described operation for the 80+80 configuration may bereversed, and the combined data may be sent to the Medium Access Control(MAC).

Sub 1 GHz modes of operation are supported by 802.11af and 802.11ah. Thechannel operating bandwidths, and carriers, are reduced in 802.11af and802.11ah relative to those used in 802.11n, and 802.11ac. 802.11afsupports 5 MHz, 10 MHz and 20 MHz bandwidths in the TV White Space(TVWS) spectrum, and 802.11ah supports 1 MHz, 2 MHz, 4 MHz, 8 MHz, and16 MHz bandwidths using non-TVWS spectrum. According to a representativeembodiment, 802.11ah may support Meter Type Control/Machine-TypeCommunications, such as MTC devices in a macro coverage area. MTCdevices may have certain capabilities, for example, limited capabilitiesincluding support for (e.g., only support for) certain and/or limitedbandwidths. The MTC devices may include a battery with a battery lifeabove a threshold (e.g., to maintain a very long battery life).

WLAN systems, which may support multiple channels, and channelbandwidths, such as 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11af, and 802.11ah, include achannel which may be designated as the primary channel. The primarychannel may have a bandwidth equal to the largest common operatingbandwidth supported by all STAs in the BSS. The bandwidth of the primarychannel may be set and/or limited by a STA, from among all STAs inoperating in a BSS, which supports the smallest bandwidth operatingmode. In the example of 802.11ah, the primary channel may be 1 MHz widefor STAs (e.g., MTC type devices) that support (e.g., only support) a 1MHz mode, even if the AP, and other STAs in the BSS support 2 MHz, 4MHz, 8 MHz, 16 MHz, and/or other channel bandwidth operating modes.Carrier sensing and/or Network Allocation Vector (NAV) settings maydepend on the status of the primary channel. If the primary channel isbusy, for example, due to a STA (which supports only a 1 MHz operatingmode), transmitting to the AP, the entire available frequency bands maybe considered busy even though a majority of the frequency bands remainsidle and may be available.

In the United States, the available frequency bands, which may be usedby 802.11ah, are from 902 MHz to 928 MHz. In Korea, the availablefrequency bands are from 917.5 MHz to 923.5 MHz. In Japan, the availablefrequency bands are from 916.5 MHz to 927.5 MHz. The total bandwidthavailable for 802.11ah is 6 MHz to 26 MHz depending on the country code.

FIG. 1D is a system diagram illustrating the RAN 113 and the CN 115according to an embodiment. As noted above, the RAN 113 may employ an NRradio technology to communicate with the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c overthe air interface 116. The RAN 113 may also be in communication with theCN 115.

The RAN 113 may include gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c, though it will beappreciated that the RAN 113 may include any number of gNBs whileremaining consistent with an embodiment. The gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 cmay each include one or more transceivers for communicating with theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c over the air interface 116. In one embodiment,the gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c may implement MIMO technology. For example,gNBs 180 a, 108 b may utilize beamforming to transmit signals to and/orreceive signals from the gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c. Thus, the gNB 180 a,for example, may use multiple antennas to transmit wireless signals to,and/or receive wireless signals from, the WTRU 102 a. In an embodiment,the gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c may implement carrier aggregationtechnology. For example, the gNB 180 a may transmit multiple componentcarriers to the WTRU 102 a (not shown). A subset of these componentcarriers may be on unlicensed spectrum while the remaining componentcarriers may be on licensed spectrum. In an embodiment, the gNBs 180 a,180 b, 180 c may implement Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) technology.For example, WTRU 102 a may receive coordinated transmissions from gNB180 a and gNB 180 b (and/or gNB 180 c).

The WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may communicate with gNBs 180 a, 180 b,180 c using transmissions associated with a scalable numerology. Forexample, the OFDM symbol spacing and/or OFDM subcarrier spacing may varyfor different transmissions, different cells, and/or different portionsof the wireless transmission spectrum. The WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c maycommunicate with gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c using subframe or transmissiontime intervals (TTIs) of various or scalable lengths (e.g., containingvarying number of OFDM symbols and/or lasting varying lengths ofabsolute time).

The gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c may be configured to communicate with theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c in a standalone configuration and/or anon-standalone configuration. In the standalone configuration, WTRUs 102a, 102 b, 102 c may communicate with gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c withoutalso accessing other RANs (e.g., such as eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c).In the standalone configuration, WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may utilizeone or more of gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c as a mobility anchor point. Inthe standalone configuration, WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may communicatewith gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c using signals in an unlicensed band. In anon-standalone configuration WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may communicatewith/connect to gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c while also communicatingwith/connecting to another RAN such as eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c. Forexample, WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may implement DC principles tocommunicate with one or more gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c and one or moreeNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c substantially simultaneously. In thenon-standalone configuration, eNode-Bs 160 a, 160 b, 160 c may serve asa mobility anchor for WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c and gNBs 180 a, 180 b,180 c may provide additional coverage and/or throughput for servicingWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c.

Each of the gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c may be associated with a particularcell (not shown) and may be configured to handle radio resourcemanagement decisions, handover decisions, scheduling of users in the ULand/or DL, support of network slicing, dual connectivity, interworkingbetween NR and E-UTRA, routing of user plane data towards User PlaneFunction (UPF) 184 a, 184 b, routing of control plane informationtowards Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) 182 a, 182 b andthe like. As shown in FIG. 1D, the gNBs 180 a, 180 b, 180 c maycommunicate with one another over an Xn interface.

The CN 115 shown in FIG. 1D may include at least one AMF 182 a, 182 b,at least one UPF 184 a, 184 b, at least one Session Management Function(SMF) 183 a, 183 b, and possibly a Data Network (DN) 185 a, 185 b. Whileeach of the foregoing elements are depicted as part of the CN 115, itwill be appreciated that any of these elements may be owned and/oroperated by an entity other than the CN operator.

The AMF 182 a, 182 b may be connected to one or more of the gNBs 180 a,180 b, 180 c in the RAN 113 via an N2 interface and may serve as acontrol node. For example, the AMF 182 a, 182 b may be responsible forauthenticating users of the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c, support fornetwork slicing (e.g., handling of different PDU sessions with differentrequirements), selecting a particular SMF 183 a, 183 b, management ofthe registration area, termination of NAS signaling, mobilitymanagement, and the like. Network slicing may be used by the AMF 182 a,182 b in order to customize CN support for WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 cbased on the types of services being utilized WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c.For example, different network slices may be established for differentuse cases such as services relying on ultra-reliable low latency (URLLC)access, services relying on enhanced massive mobile broadband (eMBB)access, services for machine type communication (MTC) access, and/or thelike. The AMF 162 may provide a control plane function for switchingbetween the RAN 113 and other RANs (not shown) that employ other radiotechnologies, such as LTE, LTE-A, LTE-A Pro, and/or non-3GPP accesstechnologies such as WiFi.

The SMF 183 a, 183 b may be connected to an AMF 182 a, 182 b in the CN115 via an N11 interface. The SMF 183 a, 183 b may also be connected toa UPF 184 a, 184 b in the CN 115 via an N4 interface. The SMF 183 a, 183b may select and control the UPF 184 a, 184 b and configure the routingof traffic through the UPF 184 a, 184 b. The SMF 183 a, 183 b mayperform other functions, such as managing and allocating UE IP address,managing PDU sessions, controlling policy enforcement and QoS, providingdownlink data notifications, and the like. A PDU session type may beIP-based, non-IP based, Ethernet-based, and the like.

The UPF 184 a, 184 b may be connected to one or more of the gNBs 180 a,180 b, 180 c in the RAN 113 via an N3 interface, which may provide theWTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c with access to packet-switched networks, suchas the Internet 110, to facilitate communications between the WTRUs 102a, 102 b, 102 c and IP-enabled devices. The UPF 184, 184 b may performother functions, such as routing and forwarding packets, enforcing userplane policies, supporting multi-homed PDU sessions, handling user planeQoS, buffering downlink packets, providing mobility anchoring, and thelike.

The CN 115 may facilitate communications with other networks. Forexample, the CN 115 may include, or may communicate with, an IP gateway(e.g., an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) server) that serves as aninterface between the CN 115 and the PSTN 108. In addition, the CN 115may provide the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c with access to the othernetworks 112, which may include other wired and/or wireless networksthat are owned and/or operated by other service providers. In oneembodiment, the WTRUs 102 a, 102 b, 102 c may be connected to a localData Network (DN) 185 a, 185 b through the UPF 184 a, 184 b via the N3interface to the UPF 184 a, 184 b and an N6 interface between the UPF184 a, 184 b and the DN 185 a, 185 b.

In view of FIGS. 1A-1D, and the corresponding description of FIGS.1A-1D, one or more, or all, of the functions described herein withregard to one or more of: WTRU 102 a-d, Base Station 114 a-b, eNode-B160 a-c, MME 162, SGW 164, PGW 166, gNB 180 a-c, AMF 182 a-ab, UPF 184a-b, SMF 183 a-b, DN 185 a-b, and/or any other device(s) describedherein, may be performed by one or more emulation devices (not shown).The emulation devices may be one or more devices configured to emulateone or more, or all, of the functions described herein. For example, theemulation devices may be used to test other devices and/or to simulatenetwork and/or WTRU functions.

The emulation devices may be designed to implement one or more tests ofother devices in a lab environment and/or in an operator networkenvironment. For example, the one or more emulation devices may performthe one or more, or all, functions while being fully or partiallyimplemented and/or deployed as part of a wired and/or wirelesscommunication network in order to test other devices within thecommunication network. The one or more emulation devices may perform theone or more, or all, functions while being temporarilyimplemented/deployed as part of a wired and/or wireless communicationnetwork. The emulation device may be directly coupled to another devicefor purposes of testing and/or may performing testing using over-the-airwireless communications.

The one or more emulation devices may perform the one or more, includingall, functions while not being implemented/deployed as part of a wiredand/or wireless communication network. For example, the emulationdevices may be utilized in a testing scenario in a testing laboratoryand/or a non-deployed (e.g., testing) wired and/or wirelesscommunication network in order to implement testing of one or morecomponents. The one or more emulation devices may be test equipment.Direct RF coupling and/or wireless communications via RF circuitry(e.g., which may include one or more antennas) may be used by theemulation devices to transmit and/or receive data.

Referring now to FIG. 1E, an example computing device 101 is shown. Thecomputing device 101 may be implemented in the clients described below.The computing device 101 may include a processor 103, a memory device105, a communication interface 107, a peripheral device interface 109, adisplay device interface 111, and a storage device 113. FIG. 1E alsoshows a display device 115, which may be coupled to or included withinthe computing device 101.

The memory device 105 may be or include a device such as a DynamicRandom Access Memory (D-RAM), Static RAM (S-RAM), or other RAM or aflash memory. The storage device 113 may be or include a hard disk, amagneto-optical medium, an optical medium such as a CD-ROM, a digitalversatile disk (DVDs), or Blu-Ray disc (BD), or other type of device forelectronic data storage.

The communication interface 107 may be, for example, a communicationsport, a wired transceiver, a wireless transceiver, and/or a networkcard. The communication interface 107 may be capable of communicatingusing technologies such as Ethernet, fiber optics, microwave, xDSL(Digital Subscriber Line), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)technology, wireless cellular technology, and/or any other appropriatetechnology.

The peripheral device interface 109 may be an interface configured tocommunicate with one or more peripheral devices. The peripheral deviceinterface 109 may operate using a technology such as Universal SerialBus (USB), PS/2, Bluetooth, infrared, serial port, parallel port, and/orother appropriate technology. The peripheral device interface 109 may,for example, receive input data from an input device such as a keyboard,a mouse, a trackball, a touch screen, a touch pad, a stylus pad, and/orother device. Alternatively or additionally, the peripheral deviceinterface 109 may communicate output data to a printer that is attachedto the computing device 101 via the peripheral device interface 109.

The display device interface 111 may be an interface configured tocommunicate data to display device 115. The display device 115 may be,for example, a monitor or television display, a plasma display, a liquidcrystal display (LCD), and/or a display based on a technology such asfront or rear projection, light emitting diodes (LEDs), organiclight-emitting diodes (OLEDs), or Digital Light Processing (DLP). Thedisplay device interface 111 may operate using technology such as VideoGraphics Array (VGA), Super VGA (S-VGA), Digital Visual Interface (DVI),High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), or other appropriatetechnology.

The display device interface 111 may communicate display data from theprocessor 103 to the display device 115 for display by the displaydevice 115. As shown in FIG. 1E, the display device 115 may be externalto the computing device 101, and coupled to the computing device 101 viathe display device interface 111. Alternatively, the display device 115may be included in the computing device 101.

An instance of the computing device 101 of FIG. 1E may be configured toperform any feature or any combination of features described above. Insuch an instance, the memory device 105 and/or the storage device 113may store instructions which, when executed by the processor 103, causethe processor 103 to perform any feature or any combination of featuresdescribed above. Alternatively or additionally, in such an instance,each or any of the features described above may be performed by theprocessor 103 in conjunction with the memory device 105, communicationinterface 107, peripheral device interface 109, display device interface111, and/or storage device 113.

Although FIG. 1E shows that the computing device 101 includes a singleprocessor 103, single memory device 105, single communication interface107, single peripheral device interface 109, single display deviceinterface 111, and single storage device 113, the computing device mayinclude multiples of each or any combination of these components 103,105, 107, 109, 111, 113, and may be configured to perform, mutatismutandis, analogous functionality to that described above.

Referring now to FIG. 1F, a component diagram of a server 117 is shown.The server 117 may be a conventional stand-alone web server, a serversystem, a computing cluster, or any combination thereof. The server 117may include a server rack, a data warehouse, network, or cloud typestorage facility or mechanism that is in communication with a network119. The server 117 may include one or more central processing units(CPU) 121, network interface units 123, input/output controllers 125,system memories 127, and storage devices 129. Each CPU 121, networkinterface unit 123, input/output controller 125, system memory 127, andstorage devices 129 may be communicatively coupled via a bus 131.

The system memory 127 may include random access memory (RAM) 133, readonly memory (ROM) 135, and one or more cache. The storage devices 129may include one or more applications 137, an operating system 139, andone or more databases 141. The one or more databases 141 may include arelational database management system managed by Structured QueryLanguage (SQL). The storage devices 129 may take the form of, but arenot limited to, a diskette, hard drive, CD-ROM, thumb drive, hard file,or a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID).

The server 117 may be accessed by the clients, as described below, via anetwork 119 using a mainframe, thin client, personal computer, mobiledevice, pad computer, or the like. Information processed by the CPU 121and/or operated upon or stored on the storage devices 129 and/or in thesystem memory 127 may be displayed to a client through a user device.

As used herein, the term “processor” broadly refers to and is notlimited to a single- or multi-core processor, a special purposeprocessor, a conventional processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), adigital signal processor (DSP), a plurality of microprocessors, one ormore microprocessors in association with a DSP core, a controller, amicrocontroller, one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits(ASICs), one or more Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) circuits, anyother type of integrated circuit (IC), a system-on-a-chip (SOC), and/ora state machine.

As used herein, the term “computer-readable medium” broadly refers toand is not limited to a register, a cache memory, a ROM, a semiconductormemory device (such as a D-RAM, S-RAM, or other RAM), a magnetic mediumsuch as a flash memory, a hard disk, a magneto-optical medium, anoptical medium such as a CD-ROM, a DVDs, or BD, or other type of devicefor electronic data storage.

An information-centric network (ICN) is a system wherecontent/data/information is exchanged by means of informationaddressing, while connecting appropriate networked entities that aresuitable to act as a source of information towards the networked entitythat requested the content.

In some architectures of ICN, at least some existing networkinfrastructure may be replaced in order to realize desired network-levelfunctions of ICN solutions. Migration scenarios from existing networkinfrastructure to ICN may be realized as an overlay over existingarchitectures (e.g., IP-based architectures using Hypertext TransferProtocol (HTTP) or local Ethernet-based architectures). Such migration,however, may require the transition of WTRUs to an ICN-based solution.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a diagram illustrating an HTTP/IP-over-ICNnetwork 210 with a Network Attachment Point (NAP)-based protocol mappingis shown. IP-based applications may provide a broad range of Internetservices. Transitioning these applications may require more than a puretransition of network-level functionality (e.g., protocol stackimplementation) in the WTRU since such a transition may also require thetransition of server-side components (e.g., e-shopping web-servers).Accordingly, IP-based services, and IP-based WTRUs, may continue toexist.

In order for ICN and HTTP/IP based services to coexist, there may be agateway-based architecture where one or more NAPs translate IP andHTTP-level protocol abstractions of the Internet in ICN-compliantoperations. As shown in FIG. 2, a gateway-based architecture may be usedfor intra-network communication. Border gateways may be used tocommunicate with IP devices in peer networks.

The ICN network 210 may include a client 240 and a server 250. Theclient 240 may be an IP-enabled device, such as, for example, the WTRU102 or the computing device 101 described above. The server 250 may besimilar to the server 117 described above. The client 240 may be coupledto the ICN network 210 by a first NAP 242. The server 250 may be coupledto the ICN network 210 by a second NAP 252. It should be noted thatalthough the client 240 and the first NAP 242 are shown as separateentities in FIG. 2, the two entities may be combined into a single WTRU102 or computing device 101. In addition, although the server 250 andthe second NAP 252 are shown as separate entities in FIG. 2, the twoentities may be combined into a single server 117. The client 240 mayalso locally host content.

The ICN network 210 may also include a rendezvous point (RVZ) 220 thatallows for matching an HTTP client with a suitable server and a topologymanager (TM) 230 that allows for creating a suitable forwarding pathfrom the client 240 to the chosen server. The RVZ 220 may identify aneeded communication between sender and receiver and the TM 230 maycompute suitable forwarding information to deliver the packet from thesender to the receiver. It should be noted that the RVZ 220 and the TM230 are shown as two logical functions, but may be implemented as asingle component that combines the functions of the RVZ 220 and TM 230.

The ICN network 210 may provide the ability to send responses to thesame HTTP requests sent by different clients in the network as aso-called ad-hoc multicast. The NAPs at which these different clientsare located may be determined and a single multicast response may besent to all of the NAPs. The NAPs may then in turn send a unicastresponse to attached clients that originally requested the response. Inan example, several clients may issue HTTP-level requests for videosegments of a popular movie, located at the server 250. These requestsmay be time-synchronized in that the requests arrive at the NAP 252 atroughly the same time (e.g. within a usual server response time). Theserver 250 may generate responses to the requests forwarded by the NAP252. Upon arrival of the first response, the NAP 252 may generate asingle multicast response to all the NAPs at which the originatingclients are located. Responses to the requests arriving after themulticast response that has been sent will be dropped to avoidduplication. The multicast response may arrive at all of the NAPsincluded in the response. These NAPs may restore the unicast HTTPresponse included in the multicast response and relay the unicast HTTPresponse to the originating client. A mapping of requests to responsesmay be maintained at the client's NAP.

Instead of having a single client requesting an HTTP-level resource, aNAP may be connected to two or more clients requesting the same resource(e.g., two or more family members watching the same video in differentparts of the house). In this case, several response copies may becreated upon the arrival of the multicast response from the ICN network.However, these local copies may be sent via link-local unicast messagesto each outstanding client. Multicast at the link-local level may not beutilized if the NAP preserves the original unicast semantic towards thelocal client for reasons of backward compatibility.

It may be desirable to utilize multicast capabilities on the link-localnetwork for instances when multiple requesters are waiting for the sameresponse. This may preserve link-local resources and the overall networkcapacity may be increased.

Responses may be delivered to a specific HTTP request as a multicastresponse to specific clients (e.g. WTRUs) that have previously requestedthe response. A standard link-local IP multicast message may be used,for example, by relaying the responses over a known multicast address.However, several constraints may need to be considered to implement anefficient process. For example, it may be desirable to minimize load onthe link-local router (e.g., the Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) and onthe physical link between the router and its endpoints. The load on thelink-local router should be reduced as compared to a full unicast load(FUL) of n responses to be sent if there are n outstanding requests. Inaddition, it may be desirable to minimize the load on the individualclient (e.g., the user's terminal). The load should be reduced ascompared to the full multicast load (FML) of needing to receive anyresponse, even if none of the responses are destined for the userterminal. In addition, it may be desirable to utilize Ethernet/Layer 2level filtering mechanisms at the individual client. This may beachieved by using individual IP multicast addresses mapped onto suitableaddress (e.g., Ethernet MAC addresses).

Considering these constraints, the standard link-local IP multicastmethod may not be desirable. If the CPE were to relay any HTTP-levelresponse having more than one respondent to a well-known IP multicastaddress, any client in need of receiving the response may need toreceive the relayed message, extract the payload, and inspect thenecessary HTTP header fields in order to determine whether or not themessage was intended for the client. This may minimize the CPE load, butit may also create a significant overhead on each client. For example,each client, even if that client does not have any outstanding requests,may need to receive the message and inspect it at layer 7 (i.e., HTTPheader fields).

Accordingly, it may be desirable to apply one or more of the followingconcepts to ensure efficient delivery of link-local multicast HTTPresponses.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a flow chart showing a method of efficientdelivery of link-local multicast HTTP responses is shown. In step 302, aone or more clients may be grouped into buckets of receivers by alink-local router (e.g., a NAP). In an example, the buckets may be ofdifferent sizes. In another example, each of the buckets may be of asize N. Each of the buckets may have a bucket address. When using IPmulticast, the bucket address may be an IP multicast address. One ormore of the clients may have pre-selected one or more response groups(i.e., bucket addresses). This may allow the NAP to create IP multicastpackets to one or more clients in its subnet. Clients may keep a mappingof opened port numbers by HTTP applications and an URL of the HTTPsession in order to determine a reverse content identifier (rCID) whichmay have a format of “/http/hash(url).”

A content identifier (CID) may be used in an ICN-based network to matchpublishers and subscribers. In an HTTP-over-ICN scenario, the FQDN maybe the CID when a client NAP (cNAP) publishes an HTTP request to aserver NAP (sNAP). A uniform resource identifier (URI) may be the rCIDwhen the sNAP publishes an HTTP response to the cNAP. A response sent toa response group may include a list of clients which are supposed toreceive the packet as well as the original response as a payload.

It should be noted that even though a particular client may be in thesame bucket as another client awaiting an HTTP response, it does notnecessarily mean the particular client has an application that isawaiting an HTTP response. Accordingly, a dedicated group ID may beused. The group ID may be defined as a bit-field of size X in an IPheader, where each bit-position describes the group membership of aspecific receiver that allows a client to determine whether or not itshould accept the incoming packet.

In step 304, the client may determine the response group bucket addressand the client's position in the group ID by the unicast addressassigned to the client. Additional signaling between the client and theNAP may be provided to agree upon the bucket size at the local network.

In step 306, the client may explicitly join its response bucket after itdetermines the group address. The client may join the response bucketusing Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) to enable IP multicastpacket reception by its local network interface. The client may join itsresponse bucket towards the link-local router using one or more IGMPmessages. This may enable compatibility with existing IP clients. Thismay also allow configuration of client-local layer 2 filteringmechanisms, such as setting an appropriate Ethernet multicast addressfor the response bucket in order to receive any message at the IP(multicast) layer. If the client does not explicit join the responsebucket, the client may not be negatively affected in receiving any HTTPmulticast responses beyond the layer 2 filtering mechanism of standardnetwork adapters as the NAP may be aware which clients have joined aresponse bucket. If a client did not join a response bucket, the NAP mayensure that the HTTP response is delivered via unicast to the client.

In step 308, the link-local router may receive an HTTP response and maydetermine one or more of the following. The link-local router maydetermine if at least one local receiver is waiting for a response to apreviously issued HTTP request. The link-local router may determine theresponse bucket and group ID of the at least one local receiver. Thelink-local router may determine if the at least one local receiver hasjoined the response bucket.

In step 310, the link-local router may create a new multicast response,or it may modify an existing multicast response (e.g., if a first HTTPresponse packet is still outstanding). The multicast response may begenerated or modified for the specific response bucket to which thereceiver belongs. The link-local router may indicate in the group IDthat a receiver is to extract the response. The link-local router willrepeat this process for all outstanding receivers of the HTTP response.

In step 312, the link-local router will send out the multicast responsesto respective multicast response group addresses. It should be notedthat there may be multiple IP multicast addresses based on the assignedIP address of the client.

In step 314, the local client may receive the multicast response and mayinspect the group ID and the rCID.

In step 316, if the group ID indicates reception by the local client, itmay associate the HTTP response in the received payload to a local HTTPrequest. The local client may then forward the response to theappropriate internal application for further processing using thepreviously created rCID to socket mapping.

This process of delivering responses to a specific request as amulticast response to specific clients may be applied to an IPv4 system.For example, a local address of a client may be a unicast address of192.168.x.y. In this example, 256 clients (i.e., N=256) may be assignedto the IPv4 multicast address space 224.0.2.x²/24. A local IP clientwith a local unicast address of 192.168.1.2 may be assigned to the localresponse group address 224.0.2.1. The local client may consider byte 2(i.e., the class D part of its unicast address) as an indication of aresponse it is destined to receive.

As indicated above, the local receiver may join a response bucket usingstandard IGMP messages to enable backward compatibility. With this, itmay also be possible to implement specific triggers for receiving HTTPmulticast responses. For example, a trigger may be the execution ofapplications where HTTP multicast responses are likely to occur, such asvideo clients that might incur parallel viewing behavior in the samelocal network. This also means that clients may decide to notparticipate in such logic and therefore preserve resources to executethe procedure necessary to receive packets on the multicast responsegroup. Hence, the client may issue an IGMP join message for the IPmulticast address 224.0.2.1.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a diagram illustrating a determination of an IPmulticast address is shown. A first client 402, a second client 404, anda third client 406 may be from a network with an address 192.168.1.0/24may be attached at a NAP 408. The Class C octet “1” may become the ClassD octet in an IP multicast address (224.0.2.1) used to send IP multicastpackets to the first client 402, the second client 404, and the thirdclient 406.

If IGMP is the signaling protocol used to join a multicast group,intermediate switches and link-local interfaces may become aware of theintention of sending IP multicast messages from the NAP to the clients,and no further extension may be needed. For example, in fixed-lineaccess networks using asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), theaccess network depicted in FIG. 4 may be a Broadband Remote AccessServer (BRAS) deployment with several digital subscriber line accessmultiplexers (DSLAMs) with attached CPEs. In these deployment scenarios,IGMP may be widely supported across Internet service providers (ISPs) tocreate the multicast trees and the required port forwarding states inthe BRAS and DSLAM network elements. The proposed methods and procedureselaborate on this and may transparently allow ad-hoc multicast deliveryof HTTP responses over conventional BRAS deployments.

A NAP may receive an HTTP response to an HTTP request that has beenissued by one or more link-local clients. The NAP may execute step 308of FIG. 3, the link-local router may determine the link-local IPaddresses of clients with outstanding requests to the response. Forthis, the link-local router may maintain a mapping of a source addressto a unique request identifier to determine clients. For example, theURL and the proxy rule identifier may provide a unique request/responsemapping across a range of HTTP header options. After checking if theclients have explicitly joined the scheme, the NAP may determine theappropriate multicast response bucket (e.g., the IP multicast address),insert the client into the client ID of the bucket, and copy theresponse. If the client has not joined the scheme on time, for example,if the client did not send the HTTP request before the HTTP responsearrived at the router, the router may send the response to theoutstanding client that arrived too late as an individual unicastmessage.

Referring now to FIG. 5, a flowchart illustrating a method of a NAP 502providing multicast delivery of HTTP responses is shown. FIG. 5illustrates the delivery of a received HTTP response to a bucket ofclients. As described above, a client 504 may be connected to the NAP502 via an interface, or the client 504 and the NAP 502 may be a singleentity.

Starting at step 506, the client 504 may attach to the NAP 502. In step508, the client 504 may receive an IP address assignment (e.g.,a.b.c.d.) from the NAP 502. In step 510, the client may determine an IPmulticast address (i.e. bucket) to be grouped into. In step 512, theclient 504 may send an IGMP message to the NAP 502 to join a destinationIP multicast address (e.g., 224.0.2.C). In step 514, the NAP 502 may addthe client 504 to the bucket.

Starting at step 516, an application on the client 504 may issue an HTTPrequest. In step 518, the application opens a socket to send the HTTP toa FQDN (e.g., foo.com/resource). In step 520, the client 504 sends theHTTP request to the NAP 502. The HTTP request may include an rCID. Instep 522, the NAP 502 may add the class D octet from the IP address ofthe client 504 to a response group ID and bucket for that rCID.

Starting at step 524, the NAP 502 may begin HTTP response delivery. Instep 526, the NAP may determine how many clients are awaiting the HTTPresponse based on the rCID and may determine response buckets (IPmulticast addresses). In step 528, the NAP 502 may determine the groupID by setting the respective bit in the group ID bitfield, which isderived from the class D octet of the client's IP address.

In step 530, the NAP 502 may send the HTTP response via IP multicast tothe determined response buckets. In step 532, the client 504 may checkif its bit is set in the group ID bit field. If so, in step 534, theclient 504 may look up socket file descriptors awaiting the HTTPresponse using the rCID. In step 536, the received HTTP response is sentto awaiting sockets.

It should be noted that the examples described herein may work withanchoring HTTP-level services in ICN networks, they may also workseamlessly in ‘normal’ IP routed networks where the access routerreceives more than one unicast response rather than a single multicastresponse.

The methods described above may also be applied to IPv6 systems. Theprocess of determining the response group bucket and the position in thegroup ID for individual clients may be adjusted to accommodate for thedifferences in IP addresses.

Referring now to FIG. 6, a diagram illustrating an IP header 600 for IPmulticast with one or more IP header extensions is shown. An IP SRCfield 602 may be the link-local router's IP address. An IP DST filed 604may be the IP multicast address of format 224.0.2.c (Class C byte ofclients). The header options field 606 may contain conventional IPheader options. An IP header extension 616 may indicate whether or not abucket transmission is included 608, the group ID 610, and the rCID 612.

Once the IP header extensions are used to determine the response bucketand the position in the group IP for individual clients, the processdescribed above with reference to FIG. 3 may continue with step 306, andthe client may explicitly join its response bucket after it determinesthe group address. The remaining steps may be performed as describedabove.

With the 8 bit nature of class address in IPv4 systems, a naturalalignment of bucket sizes may lead to a maximum of 253 receivers in aresponse group. However, the size of the buckets may not be fixed. Thesize of buckets may be an aspect of local optimization. For example,larger bucket sizes, which may result in fewer response groups, mayreduce router load due because fewer responses may need to be locallyrelayed. On the other hand, smaller bucket sizes may reduce the size ofthe list of client ID pairs communicated in the multicast response,which may reduce messaging overhead. However, as a tradeoff, moremulticast responses may need to be sent over the link-local link.

Bucket size may be conveyed by the IP assignment method supervised bythe NAP. The NAP may embed necessary signaling into existing link-localannouncement protocols such as DHCP or router advertisement messages.New DHCP options may be included in responses to clients.

Bucket size may be adjusted throughout the lifetime of the connectionbetween the link-local router and the clients. Statistics at thelink-local router may be used for the adjustment of bucket size. Forexample, if the link-local router determines a group of receivers isjoining a multicast response scheme, it may cluster these receivers in aparticular address range. This may be done by reissuing new IP addressleases to those clients and adjusting the bucket size to approximatelythe number of the receivers. Four bits may be used to captureapproximately 10 receivers.

A router may be deployed to serve a large number of clients and therouter may be configured to use jumbo frames. The bucket size may besteadily increased from an initial starting value, which may already belarger than the originally proposed 256 bits. Responses may be sent toseveral thousand clients at the same time. After the number of clientsdecreases (e.g., attendance at a large scale event diminishes), thevalues may be re-adjusted by the router. The router may adjust the sizeof the buckets by issuing new router advertisements or DHCP responses tonew IP address leases. The router may reduce the bucket size to smallervalues to reduce the group ID size in each packet.

The link-local router may be an eNB and the client may be a WTRU using3GPP technology. Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (eMBMS)may be used to deliver responses in a multicast fashion. In thisscenario, the procedure may be similar as those described above withrespect to FIG. 3. However, it should be noted that the underlyingphysical layer may be configured to allow the delivery of a packet viabroadcast. The IPv4 and IPv6 protocols may still apply, and the WTRUsmay need to signal their ability to join the eMBMS bearer service whenannouncing their service capabilities. Accordingly, when the link-localrouter determines that the clients are awaiting an HTTP response, theprocedure of FIG. 3 may be followed, but the link-local router may alsosignal to the underlying physical layer which transport mechanism shallbe used to deliver the response. In the case of eMBMS, the variousbucket addresses (i.e., IP multicast address) may be mapped onto thesame eMBMS resource channel, which each WTRU may have joined. Thestandard eMBMS signaling may be used between the NAP (i.e., the eNB) andWTRUs that participate in the scheme described above. An operator maydecide to assign a specific (well-known) eMBMS resource to the proposedbucket-based delivery scheme. Participating WTRUs may join this specificeMBMS resource.

Although features and elements are described above in particularcombinations, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that eachfeature or element can be used alone or in any combination with theother features and elements. In addition, the methods described hereinmay be implemented in a computer program, software, or firmwareincorporated in a computer-readable medium for execution by a computeror processor. Examples of computer-readable media include electronicsignals (transmitted over wired or wireless connections) andcomputer-readable storage media. Examples of computer-readable storagemedia include, but are not limited to, a read only memory (ROM), arandom access memory (RAM), a register, cache memory, semiconductormemory devices, magnetic media such as internal hard disks and removabledisks, magneto-optical media, and optical media such as CD-ROM disks,and digital versatile disks (DVDs). A processor in association withsoftware may be used to implement a radio frequency transceiver for usein a WTRU, UE, terminal, base station, RNC, or any host computer.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for use in a first network access point(NAP), the method comprising: assigning an Internet Protocol (IP)address to a client that is connected to the first NAP; receiving amessage from the client to join a multicast address, wherein themulticast address is associated with a response bucket, wherein theresponse bucket comprises a group of clients connected to the first NAP,wherein a class D octet in the multicast address is a class C octet ofthe client's IP address; receiving a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)request from the client; sending the HTTP request to a second NAP,wherein the HTTP request comprises a content identifier (CID); receivingan HTTP response from the second NAP, wherein the HTTP responsecomprises a reverse CID (rCID); and sending a multicast responsecomprising the HTTP response to the multicast address, wherein themulticast response includes a group identification (ID) field in an IPheader, wherein the group ID field indicates that a specific client isto extract the HTTP response, wherein the group ID field in the IPheader comprises a number of bits, wherein a bit position of the numberof bits indicates a group membership of the specific client.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising determining, based on at least therCID, that the client and one or more of the group of clients areawaiting the HTTP response.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the CIDcomprises a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) hosting content in theHTTP request.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the rCID comprises auniform resource identifier (URI).
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein therCID has a format of /http/hash(url).
 6. The method of claim 1, whereinthe group ID field is derived from the class D octet of the client's IPaddress.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising negotiating withthe client on a size of the response bucket.
 8. The method of claim 1,wherein the IP header further comprises an indication that the multicastresponse is included in the rCID.
 9. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising sending a size of the response bucket to the client in an IPassignment message.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:determining that a second client is awaiting the HTTP response, and didnot join the multicast address associated with the response bucket; andsending the HTTP response in a unicast message to an IP address of thesecond client.
 11. A network access point (NAP) comprising: an antenna;a transceiver operatively coupled to the antenna; and a processoroperatively coupled to the transceiver; wherein: the processor isconfigured to assign an Internet Protocol (IP) address to a client thatis connected to the NAP; the antenna and the transceiver are configuredto receive a message from the client to join a multicast address,wherein the multicast address is associated with a response bucket,wherein the response bucket comprises a group of clients connected tothe NAP, wherein a class D octet in the multicast address is a class Coctet of the client's IP address; the antenna and the transceiver arefurther configured to receive a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)request from the client; the antenna and the transceiver are furtherconfigured to send the HTTP request to a second NAP, wherein the HTTPrequest comprises a content identifier (CID); the antenna and thetransceiver are further configured to receive an HTTP response from thesecond NAP, wherein the HTTP response comprises a reverse CID (rCID);and the antenna and the transceiver further are configured to send amulticast response comprising the HTTP response to the multicastaddress, wherein the multicast response includes a group identification(ID) field in an IP header, wherein the group ID field indicates that aspecific client is to extract the HTTP response, wherein the group IDfield in the IP header comprises a number of bits, wherein a bitposition of the number of bits indicates a group membership of thespecific client.
 12. The NAP of claim 11, wherein the processor isfurther configured to determine, based on at least the rCID, that theclient and one or more of the group of clients are awaiting the HTTPresponse.
 13. The NAP of claim 11, wherein the CID comprises a fullyqualified domain name (FQDN) hosting content in the HTTP request. 14.The NAP of claim 11, wherein the rCID comprises a uniform resourceidentifier (URI).
 15. The NAP of claim 11, wherein the rCID has a formatof /http/hash(url).
 16. The NAP of claim 11, wherein the group ID fieldis derived from the class D octet of the client's IP address.
 17. TheNAP of claim 11, wherein the client and the NAP negotiate on a size ofthe response bucket.
 18. The NAP of claim 11, wherein the IP headerfurther comprises an indication that the multicast response is includedin the rCID.
 19. The NAP of claim 11, wherein the antenna and thetransceiver are further configured to send a size of the response bucketto the client in an IP assignment message.
 20. The NAP of claim 11,wherein the processor is further configured to determine that a secondclient is awaiting the HTTP response, and did not join the multicastaddress associated with the response bucket, and the antenna and thetransceiver are further configured to send the HTTP response in aunicast message to an IP address of the second client.